


「連絡」

by isuilde



Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, Kinda?????, M/M, S3E09 missing scene, Unrepentant Fluff, before episode 9 anyway, but after 8 i guess, i’m fucking rusty help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 17:24:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15912855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isuilde/pseuds/isuilde
Summary: 連絡 - renraku - (v) to contact, to get in touch, (n) communication, call, message.—“So Makoto,” Kisumi turns to him. “Do you know how Rin did?”“Ah, yeah,” Makoto smiles. “He contacted me the other day...”(There are lots of ways to contact your boyfriend and tell them how you’re doing. Matsuoka Rin just likes a direct, face-to-face way.)





	「連絡」

**Author's Note:**

> guess i’ll die

~~~~~~~~“So Makoto,” Kisumi turns to him. “Do you know how Rin did?”

“Ah, yeah,” Makoto smiles. “He contacted me the other day...”

——-o0o——-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Narita airport on early evening is, surprisingly, not as crowded as Makoto had imagined. Perhaps because it’s not the peak for travelling season yet, or maybe simply because there has been news of typhoon scheduled to close in on Tokyo within the month. Whatever the reason is, Makoto is one of the few people standing just outside the international arrival gate, anxious and jittery, and he’s glad for that.

His Dad sometimes muttered about being old and not having the energy to deal with crowds in the evening. Makoto—only a first-year university student with a part-time job now—thinks he’s beginning to understand exactly what his Dad meant.

His phone buzzes—he almost jumps, almost lets the jitters get the better of him, but manages to keep it to a violent flail of an arm instead. The young lady next to him throws him a displeased look for nearly being clipped by an elbow. Makoto offers her a half-hearted apologetic smile, attention already snared back to his phone, to the LINE notification blinking on the screen.

Haruka.

_Got a message just now. You’re at the airport?_

Something in his chest falls, just a tiny little bit, which is weird because the message spikes the jitters up considerably. He sighs, a finger swiping over the screen to open the message and starts typing: _Yeah, I’m pic—_

“Ah, too focused on answering someone else that you didn’t even notice your boyfriend coming home.”

A playful tease in a familiar tone. Makoto freezes, a second where the whole world pauses as he lifts his gaze and finds _red_.

A too-familiar grin, easy and warm. A pair of red eyes framed by strands of red of a different shade, under the shadow of a cap and above another soft shade of red dusting high cheekbones.

“Rin.”

The grin widens, crinkling the corners of Rin’s eyes. “Popular as always, I see.”

Something in Makoto instantly gives way to inexplicable warmth, close to an awe, making him forget the phone in his hand and practically everything else. He thinks he should have gotten used to this—this sense of his world narrowing down to one single existence, blazing bright and ready to pull him forward. There’s just a way that Rin has that pulls everyone’s eyes on him—similar to Haruka when he’s in the water, perhaps, except if Haruka naturally takes everyone’s attention almost like he’s the center of gravity, Rin ensnares them with the force of a storm.

The second passes, and Makoto’s world turns again.

He reaches out—Rin meets his fingers mid-way, still grinning as he laces their fingers together. “Welcome back,” he says, almost chokes on the last syllable at the warmth between their palms. Rin’s grip is strong, steady and grounding in reality, and Makoto knows he’s missed Rin, he does, except he doesn’t realize _how much_.

Their foreheads bump, gently. For one perfect moment, Makoto inhales the air that Rin breathes out, before Rin pulls him into a hug, letting go of Makoto’s hand in favor of winding his arms around the expanse of Makoto’s shoulders.

“I’m home.” A heartbeat. “I’ve missed you.”

Soft syllables wisp into his ear, for once clear and uncompressed by distance, without cracks or statics over the line. Makoto closes his eyes, imagines trapping the sound within his arms, pressing it so close against his heart so that the syllables are carved carefully onto his very being.

“Me, too,” he whispers back, buries his face in the crook of Rin’s neck. “Me, too, Rin.”

——-o0o——-

“You really should have told me earlier,” Makoto complains, accepts the half-cabbage Rin is enthusiastically pressing into his hand. He looks at it—30 percent off—and transfers it to the shopping basket hanging from the crook of his arm. “I could have done the groceries at least.”

“You’ll get the wrong kind of flour,” Rin replies absently, bypassing the tomatoes and carrots and reaching for the minced onion packs. Makoto opens his mouth to protest indignantly, but Rin beats him to it. “Don’t even try, Makoto, Haru told me how you got him shimeji mushrooms instead of enokitake.”

Makoto splutters. “I do know the different kinds of flour at least!”

Rin laughs—the sound more joyous than the cheerful ring of the supermarket’s theme song in the air. Makoto wonders if Rin’s laugh had always sounded so free, or if Australia does him much better, this time.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m not that tired,” this time, it’s a pack of half a kilogram chicken breast, handed to him with a grin. “Besides, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if I’d told you earlier.”

It had indeed been a pleasant surprise. Makoto thinks back to how his heart leapt six hours ago, when his phone first chimed with a message from Rin: _Meet you at Narita at 7 pm,_ and how it had given him both the mood boost he’d needed to go through his day as well as the excited, nervous jitters for the rest of the day. He doesn’t say it, though—pretends to sigh in exasperation instead, and says, “I had to leave my part-time job early and into Tokyo’s rush hour train to get to Narita—“

Judging from the way Rin’s eyes dance when he glances back, he’s not fooled. Makoto gives up on his poor pretend and lets the happy bubble of laughter tickling his throat out just in time for a bottle of mayonnaise being pushed against his chest. He takes it, but also Rin’s hand, and doesn’t let go as he presses close.

“So clingy,” Rin teases, but he doesn’t draw away and instead hobbles along forward with Makoto. “We’re in public, Tachibana.”

Makoto hums. “Just until the end of this aisle.”

“You’re heavy,” Rin laughs, pushes at his shoulder half-heartedly. The half-full shopping basket on Makoto’s arm sways, rattling its contents. “Come on, the faster we finish the faster we can get home. I’m starving.”

It takes them another twenty minutes before they finally step out of the supermarket. Summer has not peaked yet, but the air is grossly heavy and damp, a sign of a storm approaching. Makoto brings Rin around the long way home; the long but cramped path behind the cluster of izakayas where the overhead streetlight tries to desperately blink back into life every ten seconds, the shrubs of hydrangeas that had bloomed too late and are turning into black petals under the too-hot summer, the small playground where a fat tabby lazily meows at them from the top of the slide.

The plastic bag of groceries abandoned over on the sandbox and the tabby safely cradled within his arms, Makoto looks up at the night sky—heavy with clouds with no star in sight. Rin’s shoulder presses against his own firmly as he tries to get the tabby’s attention only to be rewarded with a bored yawn.

“Rin,” he says, and admires the way Rin’s bangs fall forward when he tilts his head in curiosity. “Australia is far, isn’t it.”

There’s something in the silence that falls then—a heavy sort of realization, of understanding and at the same time, a sort of stubbornness. Rin leans further against him, a weight Makoto gladly accepts, until Rin finally finds the words to answer.

“It’s only 10 hours tops.”

Like it doesn’t make any difference.

Makoto hums. Smiles, as he turns to brush a kiss against the red strands resting just beneath his chin. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

Rin breathes in deeply, like he’s pondering the question when Makoto knows he doesn’t need to.

“Yeah, it is.”

The relief and happiness—for Rin, for Ikuya, for Asahi and Haruka and himself, for each of them who are chasing each of their own dream—vastly overwhelms the loneliness that comes with hearing Rin’s answer. Makoto nods, happy, and says, “I’m glad.”

Like 10 hours doesn’t matter.

Because it shouldn’t, really.

——-o0o——-

Rin makes him okonomiyaki with a frying pan.

“Honestly,” he lectures Makoto while he’s at it. “How do you not pick up survival skills when you live alone, I don’t get it.”

“I can cook,” Makoto protests half-heartedly, and when Rin raises an eyebrow pointedly at his pretty much empty refrigerator, he amends quickly, “if it’s eggs or bacons, at least!”

They argue over the finer points of _otokomeshi_ —men’s cooking, which, according to Rin, shouldn’t even be a term because cooking properly should be a survival skill and everyone should pick it up, and Makoto argues that the term should only apply to people who cool simply and roughly—like him, who hadn’t needed to learn to cook until he finaly had to leave home—to which Rin just laughs and tells him really, Makoto, simply frying eggs should not be called cooking.

Rin’s okonomiyaki is delicious. Which is ridiculous because Rin’s been living in Australia and probably hasn’t eaten proper okonomiyaki in a while.

His sink is tinny for a young man with his built, so he ushers Rin away over to the bed as he takes care of the dishes. He stacks them to the side and rolls up his sleeves, letting the water run hot over the dirty dishes as he soaps them one by one. There’s the sound of the TV turning on and switching to the sports channel, the pattering sounds of Rin’s feet on the floor. The rustle of Rin’s bag as he drags it over to bed, and the creak it makes when Rin throws himself on it.

He wonders, briefly, if it’s silly to think of these noises as treasured.

The water splashes up his cheek as it hits the dish he’s washing, and Makoto ducks, swipes his cheek against his raised shoulder. The left arm sleeve slips down with his movement. Makoto has a second to scowl at it and tries to hike it up again by tugging on the sleeve with his teeth before an amused chuckle comes from behind and a pair of arms wind around his torso.

“What are you doing,” Rin’s laughter is muffled against his shoulder, his hands tugging away Makoto’s left sleeve gently from Makoto’s teeth. “If you’re still hungry don’t eat your shirt, geez.”

“I don’t want it to get wet,” Makoto whines over Rin’s chuckle. He waits for Rin to hike his sleeve back up—except Rin doesn’t, because he just holds Makoto’s sleeves just above Makoto’s elbows, a safe distance away from all the splashing water in the sink, clearly intent on keeping himself plastered to Makoto’s back as he does so.

Makoto tilts his head back, until he could see red strands at the periphery of his vision. “Riiiiinnn—“

“What,” is Rin’s answer, thick with laughter. “I’m holding them for you. Out of the kindness of my heart.”

“It’s hard doing dishes like this!”

“Tsk, no appreciation at all for your boyfriend, Tachibana.”

“Riiiiinnn!” He laughs too—peals of bright joys echoing in the cramped wall of his corner kitchen, entwining with Rin’s own. A melody as foreign as it is familiar. The water and bubbles of soap and dirty dishes, and Rin plastered against back, hands dutifully keeping Makoto’s sleeves hiked up over his elbows—Makoto has never thought how simple he could define happiness. “Come on, at this rate I’m gonna break a pla—“

As if a cue, the plate in his hand decides to slip away from his fingers, a short free-fall following Makoto’s yelp, onto the stack of dirty ones still unwashed in the sink with a deafening clatter.

Silence. Makoto glances at Rin, whose chin is comfortably resting on his shoulder now, bangs pressing against Makoto’s cheek. “Is it broken?”

“It sounded like it?” And at the first shake of Rin’s entire body, at the first laugh muffled into the crook of his neck, Makoto whines, “Riiiiinnn!”

“Eh, at least it’s just a hundred-yen-store plate. Don’t worry, you can use the not-broken one tomorrow morning.” Sharp teeth set themselves on the junction between Makoto’s neck and his shoulder, gnawing playfully. “I’ll just eat from here.”

It makes Makoto’s heart skips a bit. “Please don’t make me break more plates.”

“So wash them quickly, and then maybe we can have desserts.”

Honestly, the predatory grin he could feel pressed into the crook of his neck is just unfair.

——-o0o——-

100 meter in butterfly and 100 meter in freestyle. Makoto thinks he never expected to hear less, and tells Rin as much.

Rin looks at him in that particular way he does, ever since Makoto told him he’s going to stop swimming competitively. His palm rests over Makoto’s cheek, fingers brushing his damp bangs away, before leaning in to press an open-mouthed kiss on the corner of Makoto’s mouth. Makoto tilts his head, searches for more, tongue flicking out to catch Rin’s own.

“I still wish,” Rin whispers in the non-existent air between their lips. “That you’re still walking the same path as I am. For the world.”

Makoto smiles softly. “I don’t think I’m made for that, Rin.”

“No one is ever made for the path, Makoto. It’s a choice.” Fingers skittering down Makoto’s bare hips, tracing the line of his hipbone. “I get that you chose a different path. A different dream. I’m happy you found what you wanted to do. It’s just—“

Makoto’s breath catches when Rin’s palm goes lower, the touch barely firmer than a flitting brush of hand. “It’s just...?”

The smile that curves on Rin’s lips is wistful.

“I guess it’s lonely,” he says, and closes the mere breath between their lips as if he wants to feed each syllable to Makoto.

——-o0o——-

Rin has a plane to Tottori at 10 the next morning, while Makoto has a class half an hour before that.

It takes everything in Makoto to not just skip the class and see Rin off instead. That, and the gentle flick on his forehead when Rin places his plate of toast and eggs before with a reminder, “I’ll be back really soon for All-Japan anyway, remember? I’ll see you really soon.”

Makoto thinks of last night—of sitting in the sandbox and recognizing the growth that Australia had placed in Rin. Of tangling their bodies together in bed and tasting each other, and the wistful look in Rin’s eyes as he talked about how he thinks Makoto could have run for the world, too. Ah, he muses, because it takes him a while, but he understands now.

The path of chasing a dream is a lonely one, even if it doesn’t necessarily means bad.

So he nods and smiles, and treasures the noises Rin makes around his apartment as they eat breakfast together instead.

When Rin takes up the dishwashing duty this time, he takes it upon himself to have his revenge and plasters himself against Rin’s back with his hands by Rin’s ears, holding Rin’s bangs back as he washes the dishes.

“You’re heavy,” Rin complains, laughter under each syllable, and Makoto grins through all the bubble-flicking Rin subjects him to. He even manages to sneak a kiss onto Rin’s nape and grazes his teeth there ever-so-slightly.

Rin breaks a plate, too.

And it’s okay. It’s just a hundred-yen-store plate, after all.

Like Australia, just ten hours away, it shouldn’t matter.

——-o0o——-

 

 

 

“—and said that he beat the base time in 100 meter butterfly and 100 meter freestyle.”

Kisumi brightens even more. “Wow, 100 meter freestyle is going to be quite a free-for-all battle, isn’t it?”

——-o0o——-

**Author's Note:**

> in my defense makoto never actually specified how rin contacted him. it’s probably by phone or messages, like they always do. i like that too.
> 
> also i really wanted to write the sleeves thing because no one would and i desperately need one for makorin.


End file.
